Devon Monk - Tin Swift

Mae looked away from him to his brother, Wil, who was watching her with the curious eyes of the wolf he once was. Then she looked at Alun. “You’re against it?” she asked.

“Not entirely,” he hedged. “If you think you can do it. Are you strong enough, Mrs. Lindson? Are you near enough the Holder to call it this far?”

Mae knew she was not. But she had to try. “I’ll need a flame, a bowl of water, a stone or dirt, and smoke. And I’ll need you all to give me and Rose space.”

Alun lifted one eyebrow. “As you say.”

Everyone on the ship moved away. Someone found the items she had asked for, and Cedar handed them to her.

A lantern for flame, a cup of water, a smooth stone out of Seldom’s pocket, and a bundle of sage that would smoke once lit.

“Will these do?” Cedar asked.

“Yes.” Mae took them and placed one at each compass point on the floor around Rose. Then she stood next to Rose.

It was as if all the color had washed out of her friend. Her skin was gray, her lips blue, and the fire of her hair dulled down to ash.

Her eyes were open, glossy as dull nickels, staring at the ceiling. Each breath stopped too soon, and the next began too late.

Mae took a deep breath. The sisters’ chorus grew louder with her fear. She shouldn’t be using magic, shouldn’t whisper the spell, shouldn’t utter the blessing, cast the binding. Magic turned dark in her hands. Magic turned wicked on her words.

The sisters did not want her to use magic.

Mae refused to listen to the voices. This was the only thing that might save Rose.

She took Rose’s hand firmly in her own and closed her eyes.

The fragment to the whole, the Holder to the key. Two as one, joined, bound, forever. Come on the wind, come on the earth, come on the stars, come on the mist. Be bound, be whole, be healed once again.

She let the words of the spell reach out far and wide, singing it over the sound of the sisters’ voices, singing it over the sound of the ships, the wind, the night.

But it was too much, impossible to think, to hear her own words, to guide the spell. The sisters were strong. Stronger than her.

And they intended to tear her mind apart.

Cedar balled his hands into fists. It was everything he could do to stand and watch Mae as she whispered over Rose.

He could smell Mae’s fear, he could smell the sweat of her pain. Her entire body trembled with the effort of casting the spell to bind the Holder.

He didn’t know how long she could endure. Didn’t know how long before he grabbed her up in his arms, broke her spell, took her away from Rose. It’s what the beast in him wanted to do—protect Mae at any cost.

And it would seal Rose’s death.

Wil shifted and stood next to him, facing the opposite direction, watching the people in the ship and the door at Cedar’s back where Miss Wright stood.

Cedar could look nowhere else other than at Mae.

Suddenly Mae stopped whispering.

The air became soft and burred, as if lightning were just about to strike. But it was not lightning. No, what Cedar tasted on the back of his tongue was the scent of the Strange. Of the Holder.

And then, like a star tearing through the sky, a piece of metal broke through the floor and hurtled into the ship. A song, huge and tempered by an otherworldly chorus, filled Cedar’s ears.

The Holder ricocheted off the walls of the ship, scorching wood, bending metal.

The people in the ship each had their own reactions to it, but Cedar took scant note of Hink’s crew’s startled disbelief, the Madders’ wild laughter, or Miss Dupuis’s and Miss Wright’s wonderment.

He was watching Mae. And Mae said one word, her lips trembling around it, nearly unable to give the word breath enough to form.

“One,” she whispered.

And then the Holder shot toward Rose. Too fast for him to stop it. Too fast for Mae to block it. Too fast.

It struck her chest and spread out like liquid, bending to fit over her shoulder, flowing down to her collarbone, and up to her ear, like some kind of medieval armor.

Rose gasped, a huge, labored breath, her entire body arching.

And then she lay still in the hammock.

Cedar had run toward Rose as soon as the Holder entered the ship and only now reached the hammock. Everything had happened in a split second.

He caught Mae as she fainted.

Wil rushed up, half a step behind, and Alun and Miss Dupuis were on his heels.

“I’ll be damned,” Alun Madder said. “She did it! She called the Holder.”

“Are they well?” Miss Wright asked from where she stood near the door. “Are they both well?”

Rose was still breathing, easier than she had been. Her color was better too, at least in her face, some of the natural pink and freckles appearing on her forehead, nose, cheeks.

The Holder looked like someone had melted it down to pour a liquid sheet of tin across Rose’s shoulder and chest. He wondered if the key had gone liquid inside her body, if that was why her skin and eyes had been turning gray.

“Don’t touch it,” Alun Madder said. “It might take some time for the Holder to draw all of the key out of her blood and bones.”

Cedar didn’t wait around to watch. He carefully unclasped Mae’s hand from Rose’s and carried Mae over to one of the crew’s cots toward the front of the ship, where he eased her down gently. He tucked a blanket up around her shoulders and brushed her hair away from her face.

She was breathing, but didn’t stir.

A startled cry filled the room, and was quickly smothered out.

“Joonie!” Miss Dupuis said.

Cedar turned, but his nose, his ears told him what was happening before his eyes confirmed it.

Mr. Shunt stood in the doorway, Joonie Wright’s back pressed hard against him. Three of his long, knobby fingers pressed over her mouth, the razor-sharp point of his index finger poised over her eye.

He must have climbed the anchor line, even though that was nearly an impossible thing.

But then, Mr. Shunt himself was a nearly impossible thing.

They had called the Holder, and Shunt had followed.

Cedar and Mae were the only two people at the head of the ship. Of the people toward the rear of the ship, Wil stood nearest Shunt, hands loose at his side, head bent, so he looked up through his hair at the monster. He might be standing in a man’s skin, but it was wolf and rage that filled him now.

Cedar knew exactly what Wil was going to do. He was going to kill Shunt.

But not if Cedar killed Shunt first.

“Give the witch to me, Hunter,” Shunt crooned. “Or this woman will die.” He twitched his pinky and Joonie gasped as blood spilled down her neck.

Cedar didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. If he did, Shunt would slit her throat.

“The witch,” Shunt hissed. “Now.” He jerked his ring finger across Joonie’s mouth.

She screamed as he sliced her lips open.

Miss Dupuis already had her hand on her gun. So did Ansell, Seldom, and Guffin.

But no one could shoot Shunt without hurting Joonie.

“You want the witch?” Cedar said, shifting his shoulders so that Shunt could better see Mae lying helpless and unconscious in the cot. “Come take her from me.”

Shunt was fast.

So was everyone else on the ship.

Cedar felt like time wound down, slow, slow, slow.

Wil, faster even than Cedar, leaped at Shunt, gun already firing at his head.

Shunt flicked a silver blade from his cuff. The blade struck Wil in the chest.

Thread spooled out of Shunt’s other hand to cinch around Joonie’s neck. Then he shoved her at Wil.

Joonie, eyes wide, collided with Wil.

As Shunt ran for Mae.

Shunt yanked the thread. Joonie’s head snapped back just as Wil caught her in his arms and they both went down.